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okay, I know there is a program called NoiseNak ( http://www.nakware.com/noisenak ) that does this but I have found it to be a little to bloated for my taste and I was looking for something a little "lighter" (less memory, less cpu usage, simpler feature set)

Here is the basic idea:-the computer is in the den/study/wherever-you forget to shut it off or turn down the volume-you climb into bed on a cold night and are about to fall asleep-all of a sudden your computer is beeping and making sounds (new email alarms, winamp, media player, web pages etc)-now you have to wake up and get disturbed (or your kids, wife, etc)

And here is the Solution (if someone can code it!):-program loads at startup, sits in system tray-program is small (low memory/cpu) and unobtrusive-after XX minutes of inactivity (XX should be configurable by user) the master mixer volume is muted-when user returns and moves the mouse/keybd, sound will return to its previous state¬† ¬†(notice I said previous state and not necessarily un-muted-- for example if the speaker¬† ¬†was already muted BEFORE the user went idle, then it should remain muted even after they return)-the mixer state will be preserved between reboots -- by this I mean that if the computer reboots for some reason in the middle of the night, the user will not be disturbed by loud beeps and noises, so if speaker was muted, then it will still be muted even after next startup.¬† Example of this is sometimes Defrag program needs to reboot computer to do its work, and this may happen at 5am on Saturday morning etc, this way user does not have to be disturbed...

That's about it............. I actually hired someone to write a program like this for me a few years ago but I lost the program and the source code and I was not able to contact the developer........ I have really missed this program ever since!!

@skrommel: Maybe you should put this on http://fileforum.betanews.com/ - I'd rate it 5/5 for sure and having it on such a site (which has many users and allows ratings and reviews) would get the word out faster and would also help to let more guys know about this great site!

Might I suggest a tiny addition for version 2.0? (the dialog is so great it needs a higher version ) Put an example in the text for the "What programs should prevent idle muting?" box, so that it would say "What programs should prevent idle muting? (Example: winamp.exe,vlc.exe" instead. That way people would know what the correct syntax is even when they delete what's in there when they start to use IdleTime (like I did) - if they want to add programs there 9 weeks later they probably won't remember.

At least I wouldn't

Oh yeah, and I request another important GUI change: switch the "Cancel" and "OK" buttons - 99% of all apps show the "OK" button on the left hand.

CPU load is mostly at 0% now, jumps to 3% every now and then - I can live with that

Reduced the CPU load even more, added a better About dialog and some more tray icons.

Skrommel

Thanks!

"some more"? Do you mean the alternative icon when muted? That brings up another request: I'd like if you would use the red (warning) color only if the muting kicked in already, so the tray icon would just be grey (or grey and green?) until muting is actived.

When I click the URL in the "About" window an error pops up, point to--> 199: Run,www.donationcoders.com/skrommel

I don't know if I agree with you about the tray icons. The grey is used when IdleMute is diabled, and the red line when the speaker is muted. Anyone else care to comment?

You are right, I was not clear enough, it's just the lower right part that's always red:When using high resolutions you won't recognize the added red line easily, and what's more important: I prefer to see red in the tray only if there's a problem or something important going on.

ok just tested it out--- really like the interface and seems to be 99% perfect

just a few comments, suggestions:

1. tray icon is kind of hard to see and "fuzzy" around edges on my XP box running @ 1280x1024. can you maybe simplify it a bit --- maybe just a nicely colored/shaded green/red box? this would make it easier to tell the difference between IdleMute and the "normal" XP speaker icon.

2. the setting "how long should the PC be idle before muting?" -- why does this have a timestamp selector on it? I am not sure what to set this to...... is it minutes/seconds elapsed since midnight? so if you want 10 minutes then you set to 12:10:00 AM? not sure why you have chosen this type of control but a simple text box with "# of minutes" would be more intuitive I think.

3. on the right-click tray menu, if the user picks "IdleMute" (the bolded top item) then it actually toggles the status of the "Mute" option which is the next one down. This is not intuitive, either selecting "IdleMute" should open the About box or it should be removed completely. No need to have two menu options right next to each other that both do the same thing!

2. the setting "how long should the PC be idle before muting?" -- why does this have a timestamp selector on it? I am not sure what to set this to...... is it minutes/seconds elapsed since midnight?¬† so if you want 10 minutes then you set to 12:10:00 AM?¬† not sure why you have chosen this type of control but a simple text box with "# of minutes" would be more intuitive I think.

I find it very intuitive and also very easy to use the way it is now - you did see the "How long..." words above it I hope?

@LuckMan212:In 2. I used the TimeDate control, and never considered the regional settings!

About 1. and 3.: There are a few limitations in AutoHotkey, and this is the best I can do, so far. Some of the icons are 16 colors only, and to have both a doubleclick action and a bold text in the menu, they have to perform the same action. Hope you can live with it! ¬†